By the end of EDUCAUSE 2025, one prevailing sentiment stood out — recognition that higher education continues to be under sustained pressure, yet institutions are pushing ahead.
Higher education leaders are carrying the accumulated weight of the last decade and a half. Many lived through the 2008 financial crisis, navigated years of enrollment and funding volatility, and then had to rewire their institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now they face another structural turn as agentic AI, demographic changes, and new expectations about value converge.
Yet across our conversations in Nashville, TN, the mood was not paralysis. It was something more intentional. Leaders know the environment will keep changing. What they want is a way to adapt without living in perpetual crisis response.
Three patterns from our conversations at EDUCAUSE point toward that future.
In Nashville, our analysts heard the same constraints they have heard for years, only sharper. Capital for major system changes is still scarce, staff capacity has been stretched by back-to-back initiatives, and campus communities are understandably wary of another “transformation.” None of this is new, but leaders described it as pressure that has accumulated rather than eased.
However, despite all the strain, what we felt was the renewed focus on ways to use the emerging tools to overcome the resource constraints and challenges institutions face. As Tambellini Vice President of Research Hampton Shive observed, the most thoughtful institutions did not get bogged down by external pressures; instead, they chose to lead boldly and found success amid challenges.
Tambellini Senior Analyst Matthew Winn emphasized that the institutions making real progress are the ones that begin by asking which outcomes they need to change for students, faculty, and staff, not which tool they should buy next. The better discussions start with questions like, “What outcomes do we need to improve in the next two to three years?” and, “Which processes are truly getting in their way?” — treating technology as one of several levers to achieve those results, rather than the starting point.
This sounds simple, but it is strategically important. When leaders start with outcomes, they naturally:
Modernization of core systems is no longer a hypothetical discussion. Across Nashville, many institutions were actively scoping or preparing to replace or reconfigure ERP and SIS platforms, often under intense financial pressure. Tambellini Principal Analyst Dave Kieffer observed that CIOs “have a lot on their plate” with modernization and budget tightening happening at once, yet what stood out was determination rather than despair. Leaders are lining up major projects while trying to hold the line on fiscal discipline.
Their logic is straightforward. Aging systems are blocking needed improvements in teaching and learning, advising, financial operations, HR, and analytics. At the same time, everyone knows these projects will land in an environment that refuses to sit still. Demographic shifts are changing enrollment patterns, funding models remain unsettled, vendors are repositioning, and AI capabilities are evolving month by month.
In the past, system replacement was often treated as a one-time event. You endured a difficult implementation, then lived on that platform for a decade. The emerging view is very different. As Hampton Shive put it, EDUCAUSE made it clear that institutions will need to change and reconfigure continually, not because projects are failing, but because the landscape around them keeps shifting.
That mindset has two practical implications. First, architect for flexibility. Choices about platforms, integration patterns, and data models should be evaluated not only on current fit, but on how many future options they keep open. Second, Dave Kieffer emphasizes that institutions should prioritize investment in low-cost, high-value preparation. For example, groundwork such as process mapping, data cleanup, governance structures, and targeted pilots will be useful regardless of which vendor is selected. Modernization, in this frame, is less about crossing a finish line and more about building an institutional muscle: the ability to keep core operations aligned with mission as conditions change.
On AI, institutions have moved beyond curiosity about chat interfaces. In sessions, hallway conversations, and vendor demos, the focus was on how automation and agentic workflows will affect advising, financial aid, HR, research administration, and more. On the exhibit floor, many vendors positioned themselves beyond simple chatbots, highlighting agentic AI embedded in workflows and AI add-on capabilities that can bolt onto existing systems. Matthew Winn noted that vendors are trying to anticipate where institutions will be in a few years and design for those emerging needs. As a result, the most common questions from campus leaders were not “What can this do?” but “How do we adopt this safely?” and “How do we prove value quickly enough to justify continued investment?” In discussions at the conference, Alpha Hamadou-Ibrahim, Tambellini Vice President of Data, Analytics, and AI, saw institutions zeroing in on vendor risk and accessibility as part of their AI deployment. Leaders want practical, campus-wide frameworks to decide where AI is appropriate, how to evaluate vendor claims, and how to address bias, accessibility, and privacy in real use cases, not just on paper.
Institutions are also recognizing that success depends on broad, practical understanding of these tools. As Tambellini Senior Analyst Michael Anderson emphasized, this is the moment to move from strategy to execution. Leaders need to demystify AI by using it in their own work, signaling that it is part of everyday practice, not a distant experiment. Some systems are already building structured programs to raise AI fluency for faculty, staff, and students and are starting to treat AI as governed, everyday infrastructure that is embedded in core workflows, rather than a short-lived novelty.
Effective leadership in this moment will not mean eliminating uncertainty. It will mean naming the outcomes the institution must achieve, being transparent about tradeoffs, and creating conditions for teams to experiment in bounded, supported ways. It will mean building governance structures that share ownership of AI and data decisions, and protecting time and attention for the work beneath the buzzwords: process redesign, change management, and staff development.
Higher education has outlasted depressions, pandemics, and cultural upheavals because, at critical points, it has been willing to reshape itself around what its communities need. That history does not guarantee future success, but it does offer a pattern.
The sector’s next chapter will belong to institutions that design themselves to absorb ongoing change while staying anchored to mission and care for people. In practical terms, that means building systems, governance, and cultures that can bend without breaking. It is not about being unshakable in the face of disruption. It is about cultivating the capacity to respond thoughtfully, again and again. It is about resilience by design.
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